Trump’s crusade against Qatar isn’t about terrorism – it’s revenge for a failed business deal
Was Qatar singled out for punishment because it cosies up to Iran and is the world’s biggest supporter of terrorism? Or was it because it failed to back The Family?
- Anthony Harwood
- Wednesday 12 July 2017 10:43 BST
- Another day, another story about one of The Trump Family being up to no good.
First it was a meeting between the President’s oldest son, Donald Jnr, with a pro-Kremlin lawyer who said she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton before the election.
Reports claimed that he was specifically told that Natalia Veselnitskaya had material from the Russian government which could help his father’s candidacy.
But he let his visitor into Trump Tower anyway
Donald Snr was not in the room but his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was at the meeting which took place after Trump secured the Republican nomination last year.
Which brings us to Meeting No 2.
A year earlier Kushner was not just in the room but chairing a series of meetings with one of the world’s richest men to re-finance one of his ailing New York properties to the tune of $500m.
And where was the man with the magic mountain of money from? Qatar.
Unlike the meetings with Natalia which, it’s said by the White House, were over in a day when it became clear she had nothing to offer, these talks went on for about two years.
With their immense wealth the Qataris had an awful lot to offer and talks continued beyond the election before coming to an abrupt end in March when Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani walked away.
The reason? Kushner was unable to come up with any co-funding as stipulated by the Qataris from the outset.
